Manton and Daniel talk about the upcoming Apple special event where new iPhones are expected to be announced. They talk about their respective likelihoods of buying one, and remark on the diminishing importance of smallness in a phone’s physical design. They discuss the nascent Apple Intelligence features in macOS and iOS betas, the general competitive state of AI services, and the virtue of being able to easily switch from one hosted AI services provider to another.
Links:
- Apple Event – Watch live at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.
- What to Expect – The Verge’s rundown of anticipated announcements.
- Apple Intelligence – Apple’s product marketing page for Apple Intelligence.
- Priority Phishing Email – Cabel Sasser shares his experience with Apple’s AI misclassifying a scam email.
- Claude – ChatGPT competitor from Anthropic.
- Prompt Engineering – OpenAI documentation on improving the effectiveness of AI prompts.
- Apple’s Pre-Prompts – MacRumors reports on the uncovering of OS-bundled prompts in Apple’s apps.
- Claude’s Pre-Prompts – Documentation from Anthropic about the specific prompts they preload their AI products with.
- Llama 3 – Open-source LLM software from Meta.
- xAI Rush in Memphis – Manton’s post about Elon Musk’s huge AI server center in Tennessee.
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September 7, 2024 at 8:21 pm.
Daniel and Manton talk about the U.S. Government’s anti-trust verdict against Google, and consider the impact it may have on browser vendors such as Apple and Mozilla. They discuss the slow rollout of Apple’s beta Apple Intelligence features, and bemoan the lack of extensibility and integration points for developers. Finally, they talk about how increasingly locked down computing platforms are diminishing the ability for the diverse population of developers to push the limits of said platforms.
Links:
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August 9, 2024 at 7:49 pm.
Daniel and Manton talk about the CrowdStrike fiasco, Daniel’s narrow escape from traveling chaos, and the resilience of people during an emergency. They wonder how a company whose overt value is to protect you from outages can survive a catastrophic failure? They also chat about OpenAI’s recently announced SearchGPT, and the potential it may have to disrupt Google. Will all future search engines use AI? Finally, they consider the potential for a future where search engines are freemium and ad free.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
Links:
- CrowdStrike – Article on the Verge about the worldwide software failure.
- 1Password – Popular cross-platform password management software.
- LastPass – Verge article about LastPass’s security breaches.
- SearchGPT – OpenAI’s prototype phase AI-assisted search engine.
- Perplexity – Popular AI-assisted search engine.
- Kagi – Ad-free search engine.
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July 27, 2024 at 5:20 pm.
Daniel and Manton talk a bit more about AI, peoples’ skepticism about its value, and their opinion that it obviously has some utility. They discuss the Perplexity AI controversy around HTTP user agents, and whether it’s an ethical requirement that all services should always reveal their identity. Daniel talks about his recent adventures with Swift Concurrency, and they weigh the challenge of tackling a major architectural change, versus the payoff from Swift’s compile-time data safety.
Many thanks to our sponsors this week:
Links:
- Perplexity – An AI service that combines its own model with models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others.
- Rabbit R1 – Tiny consumer electronics device that provides AI services based on Perplexity.
- Perplexity AI is Lying – Robb Knight writes about Perplexity’s alleged sneakiness with respect to HTTP user agents.
- Blocking AI Bots: – Help page on Micro.blog about how to prevent AI bots from scraping your content.
- The Machine Stops – Post by Jeremy Keith about attempts to sabotage AI scraping bots.
- Adopting Swift Strict Concurrency – Updated documentation from Apple about using the latest concurrency techniques.
- Migrating to Swift 6 – An evolving document from the Swift open source team about migrating to Swift’s strict concurrency.
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June 21, 2024 at 10:27 pm.
Manton and Daniel compare notes after WWDC, reflecting on the thrill of catching up with old friends, albeit on turbo mode. Daniel takes a bow for guessing the Apple Intelligence name, and the two discuss the advantages to Apple of adopting it. They examine the “long runway” Apple has to perfect their AI offerings thanks to the cohesive structure of Apple Intelligence and their inclusion of outside services in the whole package. They compare the relative advantages that on-device, specialized models may have, versus the advantages of “world data” services like ChatGPT. Finally, they question how the AI naysayers will cope with a technology world where AI in some form is increasingly ubiquitous.
Links:
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June 15, 2024 at 7:04 pm.
Daniel and Manton talk about Manton’s recent blog posts about allegations that OpenAI stole Scarlett Johansson’s voice. They talk about the difficulty of arguing on facts when emotions run high, and how people on the internet might jump into any debate if it puts an “enemy” in a less horrible light. They talk specifically about whether Scarlett Johansson has a legal case against OpenAI, and about the importance of using facts when debating issues you care about and not resorting to exaggerations or falsehoods. Finally, they ask how we as technologists can lean into AI while maintaining human emotion and engagement.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
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Daniel and Manton talk about Apple’s latest event and the release of new iPads, Apple Pencil, and Magic Keyboard. They wonder whether iPad will ever be able to run Mac apps? They react to Apple’s new “Crush!” ad, and wonder whether they will pull it and/or apologize (spoiler: they did!). Finally, they talk about Mastodon’s new US non-profit, and Jack Dorsey leaving the board of Bluesky.
Many thanks to our sponsors this week:
Links:
- Apple Event – Apple’s May 7 event announcing new iPads.
- Dithering – Membership-only podcast by John Gruber and Ben Thompson.
- Accidental Tech Podcast – Popular tech podcast with an Apple slant.
- Give Us a Tablet – Manton’s 2008 post describing his desire for a Mac-based tablet.
- Crush! – Apple’s controversial iPad Pro ad.
- Boom Kill Cry – Adam Lisagor’s take on Apple’s ad.
- Mastodon U.S. Non-Profit – Blog post announcing the new corporation.
- Ghost – Another non-profit publishing platform.
- ActivityPub – The open protocol behind Mastodon.
- Micro.blog – Manton’s microblogging service, also an ActivityPub participant.
- Bluesky – The social network that spun out of Twitter before Elon Musk could stop it …
- Jack Dorsey Quits – The Guardian reports on Dorsey’s departure from the Bluesky board.
- Nostr – Another decentralized social networking platform.
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Manton and Daniel check in again about their WWDC plans, and appreciate the value of meeting up with people in person. They talk about the newly announced “One More Thing” conferenced slated to take place near Apple during WWDC week. Finally they talk about the debut of the AltStore as a turning point for the openness of the App Store, and revisit the potential risks of adopting Apple’s “updated business model.”
Links:
- WWDC 24 – Apple’s annual developer conference.
- Release Notes 2019 – The last official event from the once-annual conference.
- One More Thing Conference – Alternative conference taking place in Cupertino the week of WWDC.
- River of News – Dave Winer’s 2014 blog post describing a form of RSS news reading.
- Tweet Marker – Manton’s erstwhile social media position-syncing service.
- AltStore PAL – New EU-based alternative App Store.
- Delta – The game emulator by the co-developer of AltStore, available on Apple’s App Store.
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April 19, 2024 at 8:25 pm.
Manton gets his first Apple Silicon Mac. They talk about the longevity of Apple devices and the particular performance attributes of Apple Silicon. They look forward to WWDC, anticipating the possibility of attending the in-person event. They are excited about the hinted big breakthrough in AI, and imagine how Apple might employ device-local AI for a variety of useful features.
Many thanks to our sponsor this week:
RevenueCat: In-app subscriptions made easy. Also check out the Sub Club Podcast!
Links:
- Docker – Popular solution for virtualizing systems, particularly Linux ones.
- Giddy With Mac-ness – Daniel’s 2021 appearance on Daring Fireball, celebrating the M1 MacBook Pro.
- Only at Walmart – $699 MacBook Air on sale at Walmart.
- Absolutely Incredible – Teaser tweet from Greg Joswiak about AI announcements coming at WWDC.
- Socks in the Knob-Hole – Episode of Accidental Tech Podcast in which they talk about the AI teasers.
- AI Won’t Replace Doctors – NPR show about AI and how it will be used by professionals, including doctors, to extend their capabilities.
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April 4, 2024 at 10:38 pm.
Manton and Daniel talk a teensy bit more about the EU’s Digital Market’s Act, and Apple’s recent decision to offer web-based sideloading to certain developers. They talk about whether Manton would open an EU subsidiary if given the chance, and whether simply plunging in and doing something is the best way to find out what it’s worth.
Links:
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March 16, 2024 at 6:50 pm.
